Oligarchy a threat to the English Premier League

The Gini coefficient was developed in 1912 by Italian statistician and sociologist Corrado Gini as a means of measuring inequality. Its application is diverse but its most common use is as a means of showing inequality of income within the borders of a nation state. Simply put, it’s a measure of the haves and the have-nots.

Arsene Wenger, the Arsenal manager, could probably elaborate on what disparity is, having seen it before his very eyes. His Arsenal side suffered at the hands of Manchester United one August Saturday their worst defeat in more than 100 years. The Frenchman must wonder where all the good times have gone. He has been criticised for not reinvesting in his squad in time following the sales of Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri. But Wenger can only do so much to stop the tides of change that have swept over the world’s richest football league.

The 8-2 thrashing his side received coincided with their north London neighbours Tottenham being beaten 5-1 by Manchester City, the newest kid on the block when talking about England’s Uefa Champions League representatives. What made the twin defeats stark was that neither Tottenham nor Arsenal are poor sides. Rather, they are meant to be challengers for the crown of English champions but after these two games the Premier League has suddenly been reduced to a four-horse race. To the displeasure of both Spurs and especially Gunners fans, their sides are arguably no longer in the quartet.

The four teams who will battle it out for the title, being United, City, Liverpool and Chelsea, all have one thing in common. They are owned by foreign businessmen with money to burn. United are owned by the Glazer family while Liverpool is controlled by fellow Americans the Fenway Sports Group, after it was sold by Tom Hicks and George Gillett. City are in the hands of the Abu Dhabi royal family while Chelsea are still controlled by the Columbus of foreign owners in the Premiership, Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich.

All four teams have spent more than all others this transfer season, correctly referred to as “silly season” by some pundits. Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United spent 50 million pounds while Chelsea and Manchester City parted ways with 72 and 76 million each. Liverpool were slightly more gun shy, only spending 50 million, but that figure excludes what they spent in January when they brought in both Luis Suarez and Andy Carroll. Arsenal did finally come to the party on transfer deadline day but Mikel Arteta, Per Mertesacker, left-back Andre Santos and Yossi Benayoun will have big shoes to fill at the Emirates. Tottenham did sign Scott Parker and Emmanuel Adebayor on loan, but underspent in comparison to their rivals.

A growing problem in the Premier League, with its potential future already happening in Spain, is that as the gap between the richest clubs and the rest grows, the league itself will solidify into a club of haves who can win the title and everybody else who aim for either a Uefa Cup place, mid-table or to avoid relegation — if it hasn’t become that already. Real Madrid and Barcelona have reduced the rest of La Liga to a bridesmaid death match considering how the El Classico clubs have dominated their Spanish opposition this decade. To put it in perspective, Barcelona finished first last season in the league and Real Madrid were second four points behind. Valencia, which finished third, were 21 points behind Madrid while Villareal in fourth were 30 points adrift. Valencia and Villareal would have needed to win seven and 10 more games each to close the gap between themselves and the top two. Gap is actually the wrong word. Chasm would be more appropriate.

The Premier League hasn’t quite fallen into such duopoly but there is a grave risk that the world’s richest football league is already an oligarchy where the power of a few triumphs over the will of many. Beyond the four clubs mentioned above, no other side has a realistic chance of challenging for honours unless one of two things happen:

1. They are bought by an extremely rich foreign owner or …

2. They play miracle soccer week in, week out.

Soccer is called the beautiful game because at times the best on show have the ability to astound through their dexterity and slight of foot. Also, it is a game where, as Tom Berenger’s character — Sergeant Barnes — says in Oliver Stone’s Platoon, “if we break down, the machine breaks down”. A team needs all of its moving parts to operate as one before it can play at the optimum level. If the English Premier League represented a human being specifically evolved for life on the soccer pitch, its head would be so large that the rest of its body would struggle to support it, to the point that it might topple over and not be able to get up.

Such one-sidedness isn’t healthy for the game but the status quo doesn’t look like changing any time soon.